Housing Authority adds to facility

Published: Thursday, February 14, 2013 at 05:55 PM.

A new, state-funded 9,000-square-foot building addition to one of Burlington Housing Authority’s community centers will streamline the organization’s after-school, youth and adult programming.

On Thursday morning, the Alamance County Area Chamber of Commerce hosted a groundbreaking behind the existing community center at the BHA’s Crump Village on Chandler Court, which currently serves as classrooms and meeting space for academic, entrepreneurship and leadership training programs provided to BHA residents.

Ernest Mangum, BHA executive director, said $890,000 from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development granted through the state will fund the construction of the additional building.

Project Architect David Stogner of Stogner Architecture said the new building will be about 9,000 square feet and include four classrooms and a community room.

Gladys R. Shaw, education coordinator for the BHA, said the new space will house the organization’s three after-school and summer enrichment programs, which currently meet in four different locations spread out among the BHA neighborhoods.

“Whiz Kids,” for children in kindergarten through fifth grade, and “Dream Girls,” for girls in middle and high school, will meet in the new space after school, Mondays through Thursdays. “This will enable us to bring them together under one roof,” she said.

A new, state-funded 9,000-square-foot building addition to one of Burlington Housing Authority’s community centers will streamline the organization’s after-school, youth and adult programming.

On Thursday morning, the Alamance County Area Chamber of Commerce hosted a groundbreaking behind the existing community center at the BHA’s Crump Village on Chandler Court, which currently serves as classrooms and meeting space for academic, entrepreneurship and leadership training programs provided to BHA residents.

Ernest Mangum, BHA executive director, said $890,000 from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development granted through the state will fund the construction of the additional building.

Project Architect David Stogner of Stogner Architecture said the new building will be about 9,000 square feet and include four classrooms and a community room.

Gladys R. Shaw, education coordinator for the BHA, said the new space will house the organization’s three after-school and summer enrichment programs, which currently meet in four different locations spread out among the BHA neighborhoods.

“Whiz Kids,” for children in kindergarten through fifth grade, and “Dream Girls,” for girls in middle and high school, will meet in the new space after school, Mondays through Thursdays. “This will enable us to bring them together under one roof,” she said.

The move will also allow the middle and high school boys’ academic group, “Training for Manhood,” to have its own space at the community center in the Maplebrook apartments, said Shaw.

“The tutorial program will grow,” Shaw said. “And this way we won’t have to travel all over around town,” she said, explaining the BHA provides transportation to its resident children from school to the program facilities, and back home.

The three educational development programs are free to children living in the BHA communities and, “If space allows, we can extend it to the public for a minimum fee,” Shaw said.

The BHA also provides entrepreneurship training for adults, as well as financial literacy and homeownership classes through its Family Self-Sufficiency Program, said Patricia Gilliam, special projects administrator with the BHA.

Stogner said construction of the new building should be complete sometime in mid-September, at which point Mangum said the BHA will move its classes into the new educational center and determine a new use for the existing Crump Village community center, such as a satellite office for Burlington police.